PSALM CXXXIX, 2. Thou art about my path, and about my bed, and fpieft out all my ways. T HE holy pfalmift, in the words SERM. of my text, hath with his ufual elegance and propriety, pointed out to us, in one fhort fentence, two of the greatest and most distinguishing attributes of God, his Omniprefence and Omniscience; the ferious and devout confideration of which united and infeparable perfections, cannot but confpire to raise in us the most noble, worthy and exalted idea of the Supreme Being. It must indeed be confeffed, (the best, though poor excufe for inattention to a truth fo important) that confined as we are XII. XII. SERM. are within the fmall compafs of this ~ fublunary world, and encircled by the narrow bounds of human knowledge, we are too apt to measure the powers of the Almighty by the unequal fcale of our own limited capacities. Our horizon is quickly terminated, and because we cannot fee for ourselves, we think it beyond the power of Omnipotence itfelf to enlarge the profpect. We cannot easily conceive a being extending itself through all space, yet whole and undivided; prefent at every period of time in every place; operating in every mode and form without change, diminution, or decay; comprehending at one view, all the various parts of the vaft and boundless univerfe, and whilft it remains itfelf invifible, diffusing its influence, operating, enlivening and invigorating the whole vifible creation. It XII. It is, notwithstanding, at the fame time, SERM. indifputable, that if there is a God, he must be both omniprefent and omnifcient; he muft fee all things, or he cannot poffibly be able to rule over, to govern, and to direct them. Amongst all thofe abfurd and pernicious notions, which were fo warmly embraced and propagated in the heathen world, there is not perhaps one fo ridiculous, and withal fo derogatory of the divine honour, as the doctrine attributed to Epicurus and his followers, who were weak enough to believe, or wicked enough to endeavour to make others believe, that the fuperiority of the divine nature, confifted merely in an exemption from care and folicitude; in reft, "flothfulness, and a total inactivity: in pursuance of this ftrange opinion, they represented their Gods as utterly uncon VOL. III. R cerned |